Kernels of Truth
by amandajbruce
Summary: During an assignment at the Academy, Fitz and Simmons find that every successful lie has an element of truth to it. For the FitzSimmons Secret Valentine Exchange.
1. Chapter 1

This was written for leopoldfitzsimmons on tumblr for the FitzSimmons Secret Valentine fic exchange who requested FitzSimmons at the Academy. I hope you love it! And thanks to StarryDreamer01 and notapepper for being betas for me, as usual. Happy Valentine's Day!

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_**The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them. It's for their own good.**_

_**-Sophie Kinsella**_

_**-o-**_

"Anyone know the trick to a good cover?"

No one in the lecture hall raised a hand, though there was plenty of uncomfortable shifting in seats, clicking of pens, and tapping of fingers on laptop keys.

"Really? None of you want to answer? Mr. Fitz? What about you?"

The Academy cadet in question flinched when his name was called. He hadn't _exactly_ been paying attention. On the desk in front of him was a sketch pad where he had been meticulously shading in a section of one of his new designs for a more efficient lock picking mechanism. He was still considering whether it would really be more effective than the small explosive charges SHIELD used, though it would do considerably less damage.

"Erm. Well." He cast his eyes about in an effort to recall what that day's lecture was about before remembering they were focused on maintaining cover identities this week. _Stupid field classes. Like I need to remember a new identity on top of all the other information I keep stored in my head… not like I'm going into the field anyway, _Fitz thought to himself._. _"It's bes' ta use small details from yer own life. Helps ya ta remember the ID, and i' makes tha lies more convincing. If there's truth in tha lie, tha target will believe it." He smiled proudly when the professor's face fell in disappointment.

"Correct." Dr. North cleared his throat and watched as Fitz bent right back over his sketches, not even bothering to hide that he wasn't paying attention.

"Fitz," Simmons hissed from next to him, "you could at least pretend to listen!"

He shrugged in response. In just a matter of months, they would be full-fledged SHIELD agents with a brief break before they took up their post in a lab at SciOps. He didn't much care if he wasn't paying attention. He was only in this class because Simmons had talked him into it. She thought Espionage 101 would be useful for them, just in case. He didn't remind her that they still hadn't managed to pass a field assessment. He would almost rather be taking that ridiculous ballroom dancing elective for field agents again though. He'd lost count of how many times he'd stepped on Simmons' toes in that class, but seeing her wince and laugh while _she_ led _him _around the dance floor was definitely preferable to the boring lectures Dr. North gave.

"Now, you probably think that maintaining a cover identity doesn't apply to most of you. _You are wrong_. SHIELD is not exactly a classified organization, but what we do is. That means most of you will not be allowed to talk about your work." There was low murmuring and a lot more shuffling in seats as the professor spoke. "You will each have at least one official cover on file so that you have something to tell people when they ask you, 'what are you working on these days?' You won't tell them about the classified gear you're creating for secret agents. You will not talk about your work with SHIELD outside of SHIELD. Talking about your jobs and your research doesn't just put yourself and the organization at risk, it also puts your loved ones at risk."

Fitz paused in his sketching, and thought about the possibility that just talking about picking locks could put his mother at risk; he put his pen down. Simmons patted his arm reassuringly, though her fingers trembled a bit, something he could feel through the fabric of his jumper.

"Never really thought abou' tha'," he whispered to her out of the corner of his mouth.

"Me either," she muttered back, ready to take as detailed notes as possible to keep her family safe. Instead, her tablet pinged, alerting her to a message. Around them, a series of pings and beeps alerted the other cadets as well.

"Now, I've just emailed all of you with the important elements of a cover identity, an outline, if you will, as well as an example of one of mine that was burned many years ago. Over the next week, you are all going to create your first cover - from the ground up. Unlike covers that get assigned to you for specific missions that just have quick and easy parameters and can quickly be disposed of, this one needs to be carefully cultivated. The cover you create throughout this class will be the first one in your personnel file - the one you'll use in your first few years with SHIELD. Get comfortable with it, try it out in social situations, learn everything you can about the new person you're giving life to. Over the course of the semester you'll have the chance to implement it in a few different settings under agent supervision. You'll be graded on your ability to maintain the cover."

-o-

"What do you think of me being a teacher, Fitz?" Simmons stretched out on the bed in his dorm room while he brought tea over for the both of them.

He shrugged. "I guess tha's fine."

"Fine?"

Fitz held out her mug of tea with a shrug, but her eyes bored into his, so he sighed before he answered, "You can be anyone you wan' with your cover. _Anyone_."

"I see." She smiled over her mug before blowing on it gently and moving her feet so he could sit next to her. "Does that mean," She asked, the tone of her voice teasing, "that you could be an English private detective or something, living in a little flat with a housekeeper?"

Fitz snorted into his tea while arranging himself next to her. "I think Dr. North would see through me if I tried ta be Sherlock Holmes."

"Oh, I meant Sherlock for me. You would definitely be Watson," she deadpanned, but couldn't hold back the laugh when Fitz shook his head in disbelief. She was half slumped into his side laughing when the door opened and his roommate stepped in with raised eyebrows.

Fitz swallowed another gulp of his tea along with his disappointment when she sat up and put a little space between them.

-o-

"Simmons, wha' do you think o' me bein' a tattoo artist?"

"Fitz, you're afraid of needles."

"I'm no' afraid! I have a healthy respec' for them."

"Fitz."

He sighed. "I wouldn' be the one gettin' stuck with i'."

"You don't like touching strangers either. Or having to be in their personal space. What if someone wanted a tattoo in an _intimate_ area? You might actually have to do that while under cover."

"Okay, Simmons. You made your point!"

-o-

Fitz slouched in his seat while he waited for Dr. North to hand back the assessments for their first draft of their cover identity. It was preliminary, and there wasn't going to be any kind of mark attached to it, but that didn't stop him from being apprehensive about it anyway.

On his right, Simmons sat up straight in her seat with a wide smile, taking the paper before Dr. North could set it down. Her face immediately fell when she looked at the notes on the front.

"Dr. North?" She asked before their professor could even make it to Fitz.

"Yes, Ms. Simmons."

Fitz bit down on his tongue to stop himself from laughing. He could see her itching to correct their professor that it was _Dr. Simmons. _

"Why isn't my cover acceptable? I created the outline exactly as requested, pulling details from my own life - "

"Too many details from your own life, Ms. Simmons. A high school chemistry teacher isn't that far removed from what you do now."

She huffed and Fitz glared at the professor. He clearly had no idea what it was Simmons could actually do. Simmons could, if she wanted to, lace the next paper she turned in with a particularly nasty virus and leave him out of commission for weeks while he had to recover. She had about three different disorienting perfume-like sprays she'd been testing, and several paralyzing agents as well. Just as he opened his mouth to tell the professor any or all of these things, Dr. North plopped his paper down in front of him, and he closed his jaw so quickly and tightly he could have sworn Simmons could hear his teeth clack. Fitz pointed to the red pen all over his paper in confusion.

"Weapons development for Stark Industries, Mr. Fitz?" Dr. North inclined his head with a sigh. "Mr. Stark is one of SHIELD's chief contributors. He sells us so many products, it would be prudent to steer clear."

It was Fitz's turn to huff.

"You're both scientists. Stay away from science in your covers, anything that could trace back to your work with SHIELD. Become someone you've always wanted to be."

"What if what I've always wanted to be was a scientist?" Simmons murmured to Fitz after Dr. North walked away from them.

Fitz's fingers drummed restlessly on the tabletop in response and he didn't flinch away when Simmons laid her hand over his to halt the tapping and listened as Dr. North began the day's lecture.

-o-

"What about a ballet dancer?"

"I don' think I have tha figure for it," Fitz joked.

"I meant for me!" She tossed a crumpled piece of paper at him from across the lab table.

"Oh, yeah," Fitz shrugged his shoulders.

"I know I'm not perfect for it, but I did take ballet as a child. I think I could be convincing." Fitz muttered something under his breath, but Simmons couldn't understand what he said. "What was that?"

"I - erm - you look - you could be a dancer." Fitz got out eventually, not looking at her, his cheeks pink.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

He could hear the teasing tone to her voice, but underneath it she also sounded (_Pleased, was that it?_) different. Fitz just chewed on his lower lip and peered into the microscope, not answering.

"Probably not a good idea though. Red Room agents were all ballerinas. What would happen if I actually ran into one?"

His eyes shot up immediately as his brain ran through all the known ways someone like the Black Widow could kill him. "Let's never do that."

-o-

Fitz sat at his computer while Simmons watched the latest news report on the goings on with the royal family.

_If tha' trash can be called news._

He needed a new cover. Something the professor couldn't refute. He tried to tune out the broadcast while Simmons sighed over it. He did not understand her obsession with the royal family, and if he didn't know from past experience that she would get up and march right back to her own dorm if he made fun of her, he would have teased her for her excited "Ooooh" when she had landed on the news coverage.

"Don't they look so wonderful together?" She asked him before popping the edge of a long licorice straw in her mouth.

"Never took you for a romantic, Simmons," he muttered around the corner of the pen he was chewing on while he thought about his cover.

"Isn't everyone, really? Isn't it nice to see a real live fairy tale happening right before our eyes?" She asked him around the licorice.

The news began talking about Kate, the woman everyone was sure was going to be the next princess, and her family business that involved, of all things, party planning.

Fitz spun around in his desk chair and watched as half a dozen employees in impeccably pressed waiter uniforms set up tables and chairs on a pathway at a zoo.

"Wha' on earth are they doin'?"

"There's a fundraising event that doubles as a birthday party for the zoo's star attraction. You know, the money from generous donors which allows them to expand habitats, update security technology, pay salaries for zoologists. Zoos don't operate in a vacuum."

Simmons rolled her eyes as she spoke, but Fitz didn't notice, he was too busy salivating over the four tier cake that was easily the size of small horse that was being carefully wheeled into the camera frame. It had fondant animals of all shapes and sizes clinging to its sides, but the star, sitting at the top of the cake, legs draped over the sides, was a replica of a chimpanzee.

"Fancy a trip to the zoo?" she teased him. "We'd have to fly back just for the cake."

"It would be worth it," Fitz deadpanned before he turned around and began typing. "Shouldn't you be workin' on yer cover?"

"I'm doing research as we speak."

-o-

"All right, here we go. Green. Jones. Fitz. Simmons." Dr. North set their cover reports down on the desks in front of him as he walked the room, explaining what a great effort it had been, how surprised he had been to have so many thorough cover stories after all of the abysmal work he'd seen throughout the semester.

Jemma's smile faltered when she picked hers up, nose scrunching in the way it did when she was annoyed.

"Wha' is it?"

"A minus." Jemma huffed and flipped through the pages of her report. "I never get a _minus_ on anything." Fitz gave a chuckle when Jemma reached the final notations at the back of her fourteen page piece on the character she'd created for herself. "Too many intricate details, Ms. Simmons. While detail is necessary in long term covers, listing the complete contents of your cover's digital music library is not needed."

Fitz's chuckle quieted as he turned his own paper over and began to flip through the pages.

"Honestly, _Ms. Simmons,_" she muttered as she skimmed. "I'm a doctor. Twice over, for that matter. _Too many intricate details. _This assignment was all about the details! What about you, Fitz?" He didn't answer. "Fitz?"

"B." He cocked his head to the side as he read. "I can' remember the las' time I got a B… forgot wha' tha' feels like."

"Well… what did you do wrong?"

He raised his eyebrows at her. "You didn' do anythin' wrong, but you think I did?" He watched Simmons' mouth open in a small _oh _of surprise and she started to babble, trying to backpedal, but he just smiled at her. "Tha' was a joke, Simmons."

"Oh, right. Of course it was."

He pushed his paper toward her as Dr. North started shutting equipment down at the front of the room and other cadets were packing up their things. "He says my cover job is no' realistic."

"What did you pick?"

"I work in a primate rescue an' conservation center." He looked at her with a carefully blank face, trying to gauge her reaction, and he appreciated that she didn't laugh at him outright, but smiled brightly instead.

"But Fitz, that's perfect for you!"

"I know!"

"Why isn't it realistic? I think you could easily work in a facility like that. Is it because of your engineering background? Does he think people won't believe it? Because my degrees don't exactly lend themselves to - "

"No, tha's no' it. Because I'm _facilities management _instead of a zoologist. He says tha' the amount o' information I'd have ta know abou' different primate habitats would be impossible fer someone 'like me' ta remember." Fitz shook his head. " An' tha' he doesn' believe I could pull off tha cover in a social settin'."

"Someone like you? What on earth does that even mean? And he thinks you can't talk about primates in a social setting? That's preposterous. Well, we'll just have to show him he's wrong, won't we?"

-o-

Fitz stood silently next to Simmons while she spoke with Dr. North.

"I'm sorry, you want me to requisition spyglasses, pinhole cameras, and recording equipment for you to wear home for your break?"

Dr. North laughed so hard his normally pallid complexion took on something of a purple tone. Fitz grimaced, worried Simmons was going to have to perform mouth to mouth soon.

"Yes. Please. We'd like the opportunity to prove to you that the cover stories we developed are perfectly plausible for our file before you give us our final marks." She took in a breath, the fingers of her left hand digging into her right arm when she crossed it over her body as Dr. North continued to laugh.

Fitz rolled his eyes and broke into the conversation in a loud tone against his better judgment. "I could create devices m'self if I had a bit more time. But we thought asking fer tha equipment made it official."

"Yes," Simmons added with a quick nod, and Dr. North's loud laughter slowed to quiet chuckling.

Dr. North cleared his throat. "You two are spending your break together?" He narrowed his eyes.

"My mum - she's on holiday with some o' her friends. Simmons an' I thought we'd work on some o' our designs, but her family wanted her ta come home…" Fitz trailed off, his face rapidly coloring at the suggestive smile Dr. North was giving him. Awkwardly scratching the back of his neck, Fitz added, "her parents don' know about her being with SHIELD, so we thought - " He shot his gaze to Simmons as she began to finish his sentence.

" - It's the perfect opportunity to test our covers. These are people who know me very well. If my cover passes with them, it should be excellent in my file." She tried to keep herself composed, but added under her breath, "not that it isn't already excellent."

Dr. North eyed the two of them for a moment, and when Fitz opened his mouth to say something else, he held up his hand to keep him quiet. "I will request a camera for each of you and the recording software. You are responsible for taking care of it. Anything gets damaged, you will have to replace it."

"Thank you, sir." Fitz and Simmons chorused.

-o-

"Why do we haveta put them on now?" Fitz whined like a small child as he faced Simmons in the seat of the airplane. His back was twisted uncomfortably, and he could feel Simmons' breath on his chin as she worked the tiny camera onto the button at the top of his cardigan.

"Because, Fitz," She explained patiently as she smoothed out the fabric, her fingers lingering a little bit longer than they should have, Fitz thought, but no, that must have been his imagination, "we should start practicing now. My family are the only people who know me almost as well as you do. They're going to be hard to fool." He sighed when she pulled back from him and handed him the other tiny camera. "Where should I put mine?"

Fitz surveyed her outfit critically and decided that the button on the collar of her blouse was the best option. He would have put it in the pendant of her necklace that morning if she'd told him that they would be using the cameras immediately. He had, thankfully, already installed the recording software on his phone and computer. Fitz gestured to the button, and Simmons leaned back in so he could put it in place for her.

"Simmons," he began, trying to think of a way to ask without offending her or sounding conceited, but decided to just go for it since her eyes were boring into his and he was too close to dodge her gaze now, "wha' did you tell your parents abou' me?"

He focused on the small camera when her face took on a slightly pink tone.

"Well - they know that we were in a handful of classes together. I may have mentioned you a time or two... But I told them I was bringing a friend home. That's all, really." She pursed her lips together and didn't say anything else, though her hands were fidgeting in her lap as he worked.

Fitz tried very hard not to breathe while he positioned the camera, and his face colored when their seatmate returned, an older woman from London who winked at him over Simmons' shoulder.

Fitz pretended he didn't see her.

"So where are you two off to?" The woman asked conspiratorially, with another wink in his direction as he finished and straightened Simmons' collar for her.

Fitz didn't answer, looking to Simmons instead. She rolled her eyes, her "Oh, honestly, Fitz," expression in place before she turned around in her seat to face the woman.

"Visiting my parents. We both had some vacation time from work saved up, so we're taking a holiday for Fitz here to meet my family." Simmons reached out behind her, lightly smacking Fitz's arm with the back of her hand to encourage him to talk, probably because that's about all she was going to get out as a convincing lie without help.

"Yeah," Fitz agreed, his face hot at the implications of her statement, not sure how much information he was supposed to share with a complete stranger. They hadn't even worked out all the details of their covers knowing each other yet - like why someone like Jemma was bringing home the facilities manager of a primate center home to meet her family.

"Ah, meetin' the parents. Should we ask the flight attendant to get you a drink? Scotch, perhaps?"

Fitz couldn't help it. He grinned. He kind of liked this lady if she was going to be offering him scotch. "I don' think I should meet them fer tha firs' time smellin' o' scotch," he sighed dramatically, "though i' would take tha edge off."

"The edge?" Simmons echoed with a laugh. "You'll be fine, Fitz. They're going to be so concerned with why I changed my career track that they'll probably be much happier with you than with me." She leaned back in her seat, the color draining from her face for the first time. "Oh, daddy's probably going to blow a gasket," she murmured, her eyes falling as that dawned on her for the first time.

"She's a party planner," Fitz whispered, leaning across Simmons to the other woman, "but she used to be a chemist." He tried to keep his tone light, but Simmons looked genuinely worried. He was surprised the idea of her parents not approving of her cover story hadn't occurred to her before now.

"Goodness! That is quite a change. What happened?"

"I just -" Simmons scrunched her nose up as Fitz turned to look at her, still leaning part way across her lap, "wasn't happy, I guess. I wanted to do something I loved." She relaxed the scrunched nose as he nodded his head.

"And who doesn't love a good party?" The woman remarked, nodding her head encouragingly in Fitz's peripheral vision.

"Si-" Fitz broke off, realizing he probably shouldn't call her Simmons for this little test. "Jemma's very good a' planning. Parties, tha' is. She thinks o' everything."

"Well, I do try…" she trailed off in faux modesty, but she and Fitz both knew plans and preparations were where she excelled.

"Are they grand parties?"

"Some of them, yes." Simmons nodded her head, trying to look enthusiastic. "But others are small business affairs, you know, designing the menu, decorating for seminars and presentations, things like that. I work mainly in the corporate end of things. Sometimes that can be a little dull but I love having a good plan. The grand parties are something special." Fitz noticed her voice get higher and higher as she spoke, but she did her best to keep her expression steady.

"Oh, I see." The other woman leaned back and sighed wistfully. "I went to a ball once. Got to wear a gown and everything."

"Jemma put on a ball once," Fitz chimed in before he could stop himself. "Fairy tale themed," he added when Simmons (_no, I should think of her as Jemma while we're doing this_) widened her eyes in shock. He couldn't resist now that he knew she had a soft spot for happily ever afters. "There was a giant slipper made o' ice, wasn't there, Jem?"

"Fitz," she protested weakly.

"She loves all that Prince Charming stuff. Tell her, Jemma." Fitz grinned. He might just enjoy this test, getting Simmons - no, Jemma - to tell stories over and over for the next week that she had to go along with. He was fairly certain he would pay for it later, but he was having too much fun watching Sim - Jemma, cheeks faintly pink as she gestured in front of her, explaining ice sculptures and menu options and gorgeous gowns to the older woman for the next hour of the flight.

She only wound up too flustered and looking to Fitz for help a handful of times, and he couldn't resist adding outlandish tales worthy of a soap opera to her story - a duke cheating on his wife that Jemma had to cover for was a big hit with their seatmate, not so much with Jemma.

-o-

Fitz was right. He definitely paid for it later. Specifically, over dinner with the Simmons siblings before he even met her parents.

-o-

"Fitz," Jemma drew out his name as she swirled her wine around in her glass, her eyes bright, "tell Charlotte and Thomas about the new program at the conservation center." She smiled before taking a sip.

"Where?" Thomas questioned, eying Fitz with trepidation.

"Fitz works with A.P.E.S. - You know, Advanced Primate Environmental Services." Her smile widened as she watched Fitz. "Tell them, Fitz."

"I'm sorry?" He asked, turning to look at her as he tried not to choke on the pasta he'd just shoved into his mouth. He had spent a very long flight and a very long drive with no real food, and was making up for lost time.

"The new teaching program?" She licked her lips and raised her eyebrows at him in challenge, bringing the tip of one finger up to tap the button on her shirt collar discreetly.

Yes, Fitz had known he was going to pay for the fairy tale comments on the plane. He had been doubly sure he was going to pay for it when a car had come to pick them up and drop off their luggage at the Simmons house, and Jemma had introduced the driver as "Daddy's right hand man, but don't worry Fitz, he won't spill your secrets" with a wink at him. He was now very busy staying on his best behavior and letting her take the lead on the cover story even though Jemma's sister had been peppering him with questions about different monkeys for the better part of the evening.

"Righ'. Righ'." Fitz wracked his brain trying to think of something that would make sense for him to know about as he slowly chewed his food and swallowed. "The executive board - they're puttin' a program in place to teach children abou' conservation efforts. How pollution an' climate change affect primates…" He trailed off and cut into a piece of meat on his plate while the others nodded their heads, then he shrugged, not sure what else to say.

"Fitz is being modest," Jemma stated firmly, her eyes on him. She put a hand on his arm. "Even though he's not a zoologist, he's one of the employees being asked to speak at the different schools."

"Oh, congratulations! That's wonderful!" Charlotte practically yelled. She was like a smaller, but louder version of Jemma with darker, curlier hair, and she practically vibrated with energy.

"Heh." Fitz nodded and gave a half smile, not moving his arm out from under Jemma's hand. "I suspec' it's jus' tha accent. They think I'll get tha kids' attention."

Across from him, Thomas made a noise in the back of his throat, but didn't comment. He narrowed his eyes at Fitz when Jemma lightly ran her fingers down his forearm before pulling her hand away. Fitz suspected that Thomas was itching to give him the protective big brother speech even though Jemma had introduced him as her friend.

_This is going to be a long week._

-o-

Fitz emerged from the restaurant's toilets to find Jemma casually leaning against the wall outside waiting for him. Of course, "casually" for Jemma meant arms crossed, foot tapping, and greeting every single person who passed her with a wide smile.

"You all righ', Simmons?"

"Yes, I just wanted to let you know that you're doing very well with your cover story," she told him primly, pushing herself away from the wall and blocking his path back to the table.

"Okay…" Fitz knit his eyebrows together in confusion.

Jemma hesitated, uncrossing her arms, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, then crossing them again, before she sighed and told him, "there seems to be a slight wrinkle in me having brought you home. Apparently, everyone thought there were certain _implications_ in me bringing a boy home. It didn't really occur to me that it would be a problem."

"I'm a problem?" Fitz was genuinely confused now because Jemma was starting to turn a soft shade of pink in addition to all of her usual nervous tics.

"No, Fitz, of course _you're_ not a problem. _My family_ is a problem," Jemma hissed at him before she looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was coming to check on either of them. "It seems that - well - bringing you home made my family think certain _things_ about, erm, us."

"Things?" Fitz echoed. "What kind of - Oh. Right." He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn't fidget as much as she was. He swallowed uncertainly and waited for her to say something else.

"Right? That's all you're going to say?" She leaned closer, whispering the words to him, as a waitress skirted around them.

"Wha' am I supposed to say? You told them we were friends!"

"Yes, but they think I'm hiding something!"

"You are!"

"But not _that!_"

Fitz shook his head. "What do you wan' me ta do, Jemma?"

"Stop being so nice to me... or something."

"Me?" Fitz laughed. "You're tha one who keeps usin' your flirtin' voice!"

"I do not!" Jemma protested, face bright red now. Fitz raised an eyebrow at her. "I wasn't. I didn't. Oh no. I was, wasn't I?"

"'s all right. I know I'm hard ta resist," Fitz deadpanned.

Jemma relaxed somewhat. "Yes, you are quite the catch with your propensity to eat everything in sight and your obsession with monkeys. I don't know how I've resisted for so long. How _have_ I managed to keep my hands to myself?" She remarked fondly before scrunching her face up in thought.

"Oh no, wha' is tha' look for?"

"It's only for the week," she said, trailing off and letting him finish her train of thought.

"You wan' ta -"

"It would make sense for the covers - "

"And they'll stop wonderin' why you brought me home - "

"Just another part of the test, really."

"All righ'."

"Really?"

"Sure."

"Oh. All right, then."

"Come on, they're gonna be wonderin' wha's takin' us so long." Fitz pulled his hands out of his pockets and after a brief moment of indecision, grabbed one of Jemma's hands and pulled her along back to the table. He decided it was better not think about the fact that _Jemma _had suggested this or the surprise that had flashed across her face when he agreed so quickly. He also decided not to think about _why_ he had agreed so quickly.

-o-

"Daddy, this is Fitz," Jemma said in something of a sing-song voice. Fitz had only heard that tone a handful of times, usually when she was on the phone with one of her parents and trying to get on their good side.

Fitz swallowed uncertainly and held his hand out to shake that of Mr. Simmons. The other man was very large and scowling at him and he wasn't entirely sure of what to expect.

"Just Fitz?" Mr. Simmons raised an eyebrow, his voice low and gruff.

"Leo Fitz, sir." Fitz hated that his voice had gone up something like an entire octave. He wasn't even lying to the man. There was no need to be scared of him. _Yet. _

"But he prefers Fitz," Jemma added, trying to usher them both further into the house since they were halted in the foyer just inside the front door. She was the only one who took a handful of steps forward though.

Fitz tried not to consider the possibility that Mr. Simmons was waiting up for them or something, especially since they had only been to dinner with the man's other children.

"Fitz." He nodded his head and shook his hand, seemingly rolling the word around in his mouth. Fitz couldn't decide if Mr. Simmons was trying to commit it to memory or if he was picturing it written on a tombstone. _Probably both. _

"Nice ta meet you, sir."

"Jemma, darling, you have no idea how happy I am that you're home." Mrs. Simmons glided into the foyer in the way that Fitz imagined royalty moved about their houses. She just seemed to float even though she was weighed down with jewelry and balancing on very high heeled shoes.

"Mum-" Jemma began, but she was quickly cut off.

"The ladies and I are planning a new gallery opening this week, and we would love your expert opinion." She wrapped her arms around Jemma, and a cloud of expensive perfume tickled Fitz's nose.

Jemma sent him a look over her mother's shoulder that clearly said "help," but Fitz, seeing that Mrs. Simmons seemed to have no problem with the idea that Jemma was working as a party planner, was too worried about himself. Mr. Simmons still had his hand in a steel grip, and was starting to lead him into a sitting room.

"Oh, darling, don't interrogate the boy tonight," Mrs. Simmons called laughingly as Jemma extricated herself from her mother's embrace. "You can do that over breakfast. I'm sure they're tired, after all, with the flight and their dinner. Charlotte can be exhausting."

Fitz raised his eyebrows, throwing a silent question in Jemma's direction, wondering why someone would describe their child as exhausting, but Jemma just nodded her head in agreement.

"Yes, mum's right. It's been such a long day," Jemma allowed each of her words to linger in the air, her eyes flitting back and forth between Fitz and her father before moving forward and taking Fitz's hand in her own, tugging lightly so that he had to take a step towards her and Mr. Simmons was forced to relinquish his hold on Fitz.

Fitz made his very best effort to slow his heart rate and not turn the color of a tomato while Jemma's parents looked at them. It wasn't like Jemma had never grabbed his hand before. She did it all the time when she was attempting to drag him somewhere at the Academy. And it wasn't like he didn't do the same to her when he was excited to work on an experiment.

_This is just like that. An experiment. A test. That's all._

Fitz took a breath and forced a small smile, nodding as though he was agreeing with Jemma.

"Go ahead and get settled in," Mrs. Simmons said. "I made sure to give Fitz here the room next to yours. You'll show him?" And then, Mrs. Simmons had the audacity to wink at them, making Fitz take an audible gulp of air.

"And make sure you stay there," Mr. Simmons added.

Fitz didn't even get the chance to respond as Jemma gave a sharp pull toward the hall.

They turned a corner and Fitz asked, "Did your mum jus'?"

"She's teasing, Fitz. Relax."

"You wan' me ta relax?" For a moment, he considered shaking his hand out of hers, but it didn't take him long to realize her fingers were curled into his so tightly that her own hand was practically shaking. He took another breath and said, "Right, yeah, I'm relaxed."

Simmons let out a laugh and her grip eased, fingers loosening so that they were comfortably tangled with his instead of holding on for dear life. "No, you're not."

"I am!"

"Your face is all splotchy."

"Well, there was a momen' where I thought your father wanted ta kill me, Simmons. And your mum -" Fitz shut his mouth and shook his head, not wanting to follow that train of thought. He didn't need to think about the fact that his best friend's parents were assuming that they were sleeping together. That line of thought was not going to help him actually get any sleep tonight. "I don' think your da' likes me."

"Don't be silly, Fitz. He's just a little prickly. He'll warm up to you." She shrugged as she stopped them in front of the doorway to a room full of cool blue tones and warm wooden furniture. Fitz's luggage was sitting on the bed. "Besides, he knows you're my best friend." She slid her hand out of his and walked ahead of him into the room.

"I thought you said you hadn' told them much about me."

"I haven't." Jemma didn't say anything else on the subject, just pointed out where the toilet was, just across the hall, and showed Fitz the extra linens in the closet. "Not that you'll get cold. You're always like a furnace." She winced slightly as if she shouldn't have said that, and then fidgeted with the button on her collar.

Fitz took a step forward and reached out, nudging her hand out of the way. "Yeah, we shouldn' need to keep the cameras on ta sleep."

"Yes." Jemma started to turn her head, but when her chin grazed his hand, she stopped fidgeting. "Well, I'll be just next door if you - erm - need anything, yeah?" She gave him a slow smile as he got the camera and tiny cord removed and plucked one of the smallest pieces of technology she'd ever worked with from his hands.

"Yeah." Fitz nodded as she turned to go. He found he was still nodding even after she'd shut the bedroom door behind her and he sighed, disconnecting his own camera as well, though it was a bit more difficult working with his own shirt collar. He was tempted to go and ask Jemma for help, but suspected she'd shut the guest room door behind herself to give him a little breathing room from her and her family.

It took him longer than he wanted, but he eventually got the camera out and set it down on the top of the dresser. If he was Jemma, he'd probably set about unpacking all of his things and settling into the room for the week. He'd hang his clothes in the tiny closet and make sure nothing was wrinkled. He wasn't Jemma though, so instead, he tossed his suitcase into a corner of the room and opened up his carryon bag, intent on setting up his computer and going through the footage of the first day of their very first "undercover mission."

It was somewhere around hour three of the footage on the plane with Jemma recounting a story to their seatmate about a melting ice sculpture that never actually happened that he realized he was going to be spending a week with this woman with the wide eyes, high pitched voice, and fluttering hands - she was the absolute worst liar on the planet.

Fitz chuckled, then sighed and looked at the clock.

It was getting late, and Jemma's sister and mother had both mentioned something about a "family breakfast" in the morning, so he definitely needed to turn in for the night.

On his computer screen, Jemma giggled and grabbed his arm as their seatmate told them a story about her ex-husband. He smiled as Jemma's cheeks turned bright pink and she leaned into his side.

_One more hour._

-o-


	2. Chapter 2

"**The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true."**

**-Holly Black**

**-o-**

Fitz woke to something hard and plastic poking into his side and an incessant tapping coming from somewhere to his left. He tried to shake himself awake and get his bearings, but given that he'd only been asleep for a few hours, he was finding it difficult.

"Fitz!" A familiar voice hissed.

He forced himself up on one elbow and cracked open his eyes. It was his laptop that was digging into his side. He moved it to the unfamiliar end table next to the unfamiliar bed and blinked.

"Fitz, please tell me you're awake. My mother's threatening to come up and wake you herself."

Remembering where he was and what was going on, Fitz sat up, wiping his eyes and clearing his throat, but he didn't get any words out before Simmons was opening the door and slipping into the room, her eyes firmly averted from him as she closed it behind her.

"Jemma?" he croaked.

"Fitz. Good. You are awake." She started to turn around, then hesitated. "Are you clothed?"

"What? Of course I am." He looked down at himself then up at her with an incredulous expression as she turned.

"Some people prefer not to sleep fully clothed. I once walked in on my brother to wake him up, and while I was perfectly fine, he remained somewhat angry with me for months afterward, and it's been a while since I've seen you first thing in the morning, so I just wanted to be sure." She paused and then added, "Especially if my mother does come up to check on you. I don't really think you want to hear about the Simmons womens' approval scale. She and Charlotte are quite creative." She gave him an awkward smile and it appeared as though she started to wrinkle her nose before she asked, "Are those-"

"-the clothes I was wearin' yesterday. Yeah," Fitz finished, swinging his feet over the side of the bed and rolling his shoulders. "I fell asleep watchin' our video feeds."

"Fitz! That was several hours of video! Don't worry about watching the footage while we're _here._ We can go back through all of it when we get back. Together." Her hands fluttered in front of her. "You need to get changed. Breakfast is in ten minutes. You shouldn't be late."

Fitz sensed based on the fluttering hands and the way her eyes darted around the room that something was bothering her, but he didn't question anything.

"Right. Okay. I'll be there soon." His stomach growled insistently and they both smiled. When she didn't move he asked, "Jemma? Are you going to stand there for the whole ten minutes?"

-o-

"Morning, Fitz!" Charlotte called brightly, already sitting at the dining room table, as Jemma led him into the room. "I thought you were going to sleep all day!" She poured herself a glass of orange juice and smirked. "Jemma told mum and I we weren't allowed to wake you up, that you could be a bit of a grump in the morning."

Fitz nodded his head politely, and took the seat across from her when Jemma sat down next to the empty chair.

"I don't think that's exactly what I said," Jemma murmured, accepting the full plate her mother placed in front of her.

"Well, we want Fitz to get his beauty rest, don't we? I'm sure Jemma wore you out yesterday. And last night." Mrs. Simmons smiled wide and placed a plate piled high with all the trappings of an English breakfast in front of him as well.

"Yeah… Wait. No." Fitz shook his head, realizing too late what she was implying.

"For God's sake," Mr. Simmons groaned from the head of the table while Charlotte giggled into her glass.

"Relax darling, you're turning purple. It was a joke." Mrs. Simmons dropped a kiss to the top of her husband's head before gliding over to the other end of the table to take her seat between Fitz and Charlotte. "I'm sure we would have heard them anyway. The house isn't exactly a castle."

Even Thomas was trying to hide his smirk behind his own glass of juice. Sometime between dinner last night and breakfast that morning, he must have warmed up to Fitz, though Fitz wasn't entirely sure how it could have happened. He suspected Jemma's younger sister might have been the reason as she gleefully tore off a bit of her toast and slathered jam onto it. He wasn't entirely sure what he had done to get into Charlotte's good graces, but he was grateful.

"So, Fitz," Thomas asked as he scooped up a bit of egg with his own toast, "Jemma never told us how you two met."

He drew in a breath before glancing over at Mr. Simmons who... well, he wasn't exactly glaring at him, though he didn't look altogether pleased at the topic of conversation either.

"She didn't?" Fitz feigned surprise and looked back to Thomas who shook his head. "Huh." Fitz picked up the teapot from the middle of the table and began preparing a cup.

"You tell it much better than I do," Jemma said brightly, reaching across him to take the roasted mushrooms from his plate before depositing her own tomatoes on his.

He handed the tea over to her, just a splash of milk added to it and a hint of sugar, and she smiled her thanks.

"I wish_ someone _could remember how I took my tea," Mrs. Simmons muttered just loud enough for it to reach her husband at the opposite end of the table.

"No milk. And honey. Not sugar," Mr. Simmons said without batting an eye. He was still watching Fitz and Jemma.

Jemma cleared her throat. "We actually met in a class, but it's really very boring."

"In class?" Charlotte wrinkled her nose in confusion and Fitz was reminded again how much she looked like her sister. "But I thought you worked at a zoo?"

"Conservation center," Fitz corrected, gesturing to the air with his fork. "I do. I've only been workin' there abou' six months now. I - erm - when I was gettin' my last engineerin' degree, I took a chemical kinetics class. Jemma and I were assigned to be lab partners." He thought that was probably the best option to go with - the real first time he had ever spoken to Jemma - since she had told her parents they'd had classes together.

"We'd had other classes together before that, but never spoke. Fitz was my only competition for the top spot in the class," Jemma said fondly before taking a sip of her tea. Fitz looked over at her with a grin.

He shrugged. "Would've outranked you if I'd turned in all m'lab work."

"No you wouldn't."

"Yes."

"I don't think so. My chemistry background is far more extensive than yours."

"I happen ta be a _very_ quick study. You know tha'. Just because you like homework more than life-"

When Charlotte made a squeak to hide her laughter on the other side of the table, Fitz turned back to his plate and stared down as Jemma spoke, intent on focusing himself by cutting everything up into very small pieces.

"But yes, so we were partners -" Jemma began.

"-in chemistry," Charlotte cut in and Fitz tried not to groan.

"But I don't think you were really wanting to know how we met," she continued, ignoring her sister. "You want to know how we ended up - erm - together."

"All we knew about Fitz before you brought him home was that he's very smart," Mrs. Simmons trilled. "This one," she told Fitz, pointing at Jemma with her own cup, "is very cagey about what she gets up to in America. It's always _can't talk now mum, I have an exam tomorrow_, or _mum_, _I'll call you later because I'm meeting Fitz at the library_, but she never said you two were seeing each other. And with the time difference, she almost never calls back." Mrs. Simmons sniffed in mock disapproval and when Fitz shot a glance at Jemma, she was rolling her eyes while she speared a bit of sausage with her fork.

"Please, mum, don't try to guilt Fitz into giving you all the details."

Fitz's eyes shot up to his scalp and his mind settled on a variation of their path to friendship that would apply to their cover stories. "You jus' don't wan' me ta embarrass you in front o' your family," Fitz said easily before taking a bite of bacon. He could get used to this whole cover thing if all it involved was turning their own personal history into some twisted version of it.

"Embarrass me?" Jemma echoed, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin to hide her smile. Fitz could still see the edges of it, and he was sure she knew where he was going with this.

"Do ye not remember wha' you tried ta feed me? Honestly." Fitz shook his head. Normally, the memory of the cat liver in the fridge right next to his perfectly pressed Greek flatbread from the cafe just down the road from the Academy was enough to make bile rise in his throat, but having thought of a slightly different spin he could place on this particular lab transgression of Jemma's, he grinned.

"Fitz, it was an accident," Jemma laughed. "I've never been in a refrigeration unit where both animal remains and people's food was stored."

"The shelves were clearly labeled! Right half o' tha walk in was fer the animals," Fitz said, his fork clattering to the table while his hands moved to the right, gesturing to that side of his plate, "and the lef' was fer humans." He moved both his hands to the left of the table.

In reality, they had been working in the physics lab and Jemma had to store a sample she was using for another experiment later in the day in the biology lab. She'd placed the container, a normal kitchen Tupperware container, of segmented cat liver right next to a nearly identical container containing Fitz's sandwich. He'd never been more horrified upon opening what he thought was his lunch.

"Yes, well, the labels were so old in the walk in, I didn't realize. Especially when fruit was stored on both sides of the shelving," Jemma interrupted, having caught on to the changes in his story very quickly.

Jemma Simmons, horrible improviser, apparently didn't need all that much preparation when pulling from the FitzSimmons past. Fitz was tempted to stop for a moment and tell her how good of a job she was doing, but he remembered that they were playing roles, and he had to keep up his end of the bargain.

"It was liver, Jemma! You brought me out liver!"

Jemma made a sympathetic face and grabbed one of his hands, which he was still waving around, in her own, twining their fingers together and settling their connected hands on the table.

Fitz completely lost his train of thought, too busy staring at her thumb as it swept across the back of his.

"Wait, what was Jemma doing in the walk-in at the zoo?" Thomas asked.

"Conservation center," Jemma and Fitz corrected in unison.

"Right, yeah, the conservation center."

"Well, you see," Jemma began again, and Fitz forced himself to look at her face instead of her hand. She was staring at him, not at her family, and he could almost see the neurons firing and pushing their impulses across synapses, "I was working a party."

"Yes," Fitz agreed, remembering all the press coverage Jemma had devoured while sitting in his dorm room, watching all the ins and outs that went into party planning for a royal event at a zoo. "A.P.E.S had a celebration when one o' tha founding members retired. Dr. Goode was an inspiration. Used her retirement party ta raise money for an extension to tha spider monkey enclosure. Can't have monkeys livin' in little boxes." He shook his head as Jemma picked the narrative back up.

"It was one of my first big jobs." Jemma ignored the sound of disbelief that originated from her father and Fitz squeezed her hand in reassurance. She couldn't falter if they were going to be selling this story all week. "I won the bid to plan the event for them. Well, with the way the center is structured..."

Jemma slowed her words, and Fitz was sure she was trying to create a plausible explanation, so he pointed discreetly to the tomato on his plate, hoping that was enough to jog her memory about a farm they had visited several months back where there was a particular bacterial strain they were interested in that he thought had a similar layout to what she had in mind. There was almost imperceptible nod of her head in acknowledgement, and she continued.

"The kitchen and veterinary facilities are essentially connected by the walk in cool room. The refrigeration is, as Fitz said, split into two sections. One side is meant to be the foodstuffs with a section set aside for employees since there's no real break room. The other side is medical supplies, and, well -"

"Also necropsy… remnants." Fitz gave a bit of a shudder and Jemma laughed. "One o' tha older animals had recently passed, and there were tests being done ta make sure i' was jus' old age, not any toxins in tha enclosure or anythin' like that."

"Which meant the liver was stored there, and there was a paté I was serving for the event. It was stored in a similar container-" Jemma winced.

"An' she managed ta bring i' inta tha kitchen and was all set ta have me taste test it when I came in ta pass along a message."

By this point, Fitz had to make himself look at her family to see how they were reacting. It was pretty much as he expected - mingled horror and amusement on everyone's face. Except for Mr. Simmons who was calmly eating his breakfast while everyone else listened attentively.

"Luckily, I realized what I had done about a split second before Fitz tried it." Jemma nodded. "I don't think he ever would have forgiven me if I'd let him eat Henry's liver."

Fitz pursed his lips and refused to laugh at the absurdity of it. Jemma had named the fictional monkey after the stuffed one he'd had as a kid. He never should have told her about that.

"Henry?" Charlotte frowned.

"The oldes' brown spider monkey A.P.E.S had in tha breedin' program. Well, I say breedin', but i's no' like one o' those exotic pet breeders. The goal is ta increase the population before i' dies out. Henry was tha father o' most o' the brown spider monkeys they raised tha las' few years."

"That's so sad." Charlotte's frown deepened and she stared down at her juice.

"No, no," Fitz rushed to stop the tears he saw forming. He had a hard enough time dealing with a crying Jemma Simmons. "Henry led a long, full life. He was older than me! He'd been injured by hunters when they transferred him ta A.P.E.S. I' was a good life fer 'im."

"Anyway," Jemma continued gently, "I told Fitz that I'd make up for almost feeding him the liver after the next class."

"We went out fer tea."

"And it became a bit of a ritual. We went out for tea after every lab and we would write up our reports."

"I thought they were jus' study sessions a' first."

"Until I told him to stop being a prat and ask me out already."

-o-

It had been three days of the Simmons family teasing Jemma about him.

-o-

"Oh, Jemma, sweetheart, I'm done with the dryer if you need to wash your sheets. I noticed you and Fitz were up quite late last night."

"Ugh. Mum! Nothing happened."

"You don't have to be embarrassed. He's quite an attractive young man. I'm a modern woman, dear. I remember what it was like to be your age. That's when I met your father."

"Mum. Please."

-o-

"Darling, I'm just running to the drugstore if you need me to pick anything up?" Mrs. Simmons winked.

"Oh, mum. You know Jem's always prepared. She's probably well stocked on that front."

Even Thomas was in on it now.

Fitz pretended he didn't hear them.

-o-

"So, Fitz, I'm curious. My sister _always_ follows the rules. You get her to break any in the lab yet?" Charlotte asked him as she hopped up onto the kitchen counter.

Fitz blinked in surprise

"I – erm – I don' know wha' you're talking abou', Charlotte."

"Considering how red you just turned, I think you do." She laughed, and he didn't answer her question as he poured tea from the pot into his mug.

"So, how's your stay going, Fitzy?"

"Fitzy?" He raised his eyebrows. He wondered where that had come from.

"Well, I just thought if I'm going to be seeing a lot more of you, I should have a nickname for you." Charlotte kicked her legs out in front of her like a child and she nodded her head when Fitz gestured to another mug with the teapot. "Fitzy." She nodded. "I like it. It's staying."

"Why're you going ta be seein' more o' me?" He carefully poured the tea before setting the pot back down on the stove, deciding that, as nicknames went, it could have been worse.

"Because Jem brought you home." Charlotte wrinkled her nose in a very Jemma-like fashion and spooned even more sugar into her tea than he did into his.

"We're only here for the week, Charlotte."

"Yeah, this time."

"This time? What're you-"

"Or does Jem want to go somewhere sunnier next time you guys take a vacation? She's always wanted to go to Peru, you know. That could be fun. And hey, there's monkeys there too, right? You'd like it. I went there once. Class trip." Charlotte was off and running, giving him a complete rundown of the ecological history of Peru, and it took a few minutes of her chattering before Fitz could break in.

"Why would we go ta Peru? Why would Jemma take _me_ ta Peru?"

"I told you." Charlotte rolled her eyes. "She brought you home." She took a sip from her mug while Fitz was silent. "Jem said you're a genius, but you seem quite thick to me."

"Pretend I am. Explain i' ta me," Fitz deadpanned, but he smiled at Charlotte's grin because it reminded him a lot of Jemma's when he didn't understand something in the lab and she got the chance to teach him something new.

"Jem's always been a bit of an outsider, you know? She's very smart, very keen on making friends, but she doesn't really attach herself to a lot of people. Not for very long. I only met a few of her friends because we were in school together for a while. I know she dated because of names she mentioned, but she's never, ever, brought someone home. She's never willingly introduced anyone to our parents. No friends or boyfriends."

Fitz chewed on his bottom lip while Charlotte spoke, his tea forgotten on the counter.

"Well, there was that one bloke she took to a museum opening, but she didn't know mum was going to be there." Charlotte chuckled as she remembered. "Pretty sure Jem wasn't actually _dating_ him, just, you know… Sorry, you probably don't want to hear about that."

"'s fine." He shrugged. Fitz wasn't an idiot. He knew the guys Jemma had dated. And Charlotte was probably right about that. "We were friends first."

"Anyway," Charlotte said, kicking her feet out again, admiring her own pedicure, "you must be pretty special."

Fitz didn't try to fight the smile that bloomed on his lips, but he did turn his head away from Charlotte and cleared his throat. "Drink yer tea."

-o-

It had been three days of the teasing and Jemma's father all but ignoring him.

Until a polo match Thomas had invited him to, saying Fitz needed to get out of the house - Jemma had brought him home and wasn't even letting him have any fun. A friend's club was playing, and Thomas thought Fitz might like to tag along and watch.

Fitz had never exactly been keen on polo. He didn't understand the point. He knew that Jemma found the ancient history of the sport fascinating though. Apparently, she got that from Thomas because Fitz tried very hard to stay awake while Thomas recounted the same string of facts Jemma had told him before he left.

When Thomas launched into a story about the first official polo club in India, formed by a pair of British soldiers in 1862, Mr. Simmons actually met his gaze over Thomas' shoulder and rolled his eyes in a very Jemma-like fashion. Fitz smiled.

"Thomas, we don't care about 1862. We just care about winning our 50 quid from Byrnes over there." Mr. Simmons gestured to an older man who would have looked just as intimidating as Mr. Simmons himself if his face wasn't bright red because he was doubled over in laughter at something one of the women next to him was saying.

Fitz coughed into his hand to hide his own laugh from Thomas.

-o-

"How was polo?" Jemma asked when Fitz walked into the sitting room and plopped down on the sofa next to her. She set aside the list of last minute additions her mother had given her to work through for the gallery opening she'd been talking to her about for the last few days.

"Full o' horses. An' their smell." He shuddered a bit at that. "Your dad won fifty quid though."

"Ugh. Don't tell my mum. She doesn't like it when he makes wagers."

"Noted."

"Speaking of my mum, she wants us to go to the opening tomorrow night." Jemma fidgeted with the lists in front of her as she spoke, as though she was afraid he might say no.

He didn't know what she was afraid of. It wasn't like he'd said no to anything she'd asked in the last four days of their trip.

"Wha' is it?"

"Have you ever been to a gallery opening?" She asked the question delicately, as though his reaction might not be the best.

"Do I look like the kind of person who doesnae appreciate art?" Fitz placed a hand to his chest in mock offense, making Jemma laugh. "Ah… I haven'." Before she could let the worry back into her face though, he added, "Cannae be tha' differen' from all the things we wen' ta for –" He looked around the room, making sure they were alone, "ah… school? Yeah?" He decided it was better to play it safe even if he didn't see anyone.

"True. You're just not exactly a mix and mingle kind of a guy, Fitz."

"I mos' definitely can mix." Fitz nodded his head earnestly. "An' I will mingle. In my cocktail best. For you." When her mother breezed into the room and monopolized her attention before Jemma could respond, Fitz took a moment to wrack his brain – what exactly did you wear to a gallery opening?

-o-

Fitz wandered down the back hallway of the Simmons house to where he knew there was an office. He hadn't actually seen it yet, but he'd heard about it. Several times. Apparently, Mr. Simmons often worked from home. An account manager for Roxxon Oil, he dealt with a lot of overseas investors in different time zones and could make his own hours.

Jemma and her mother were focused on last minute prep for the opening, so he was on his own. He hesitated just beyond the doorjamb and steeled himself. If Thomas had been in instead of out running errands for Mrs. Simmons, he would have gone to him instead. Jemma's brother didn't seem to hate him.

"I can see you, you know. The door's open."

Fitz gave a start, but then shook his head, took a deep breath, and moved the last few steps so that he could see inside the room. It was different from the space he imagined Mr. Simmons would work in. He pictured a lot of cold steel and sharp angles when he thought of the man's office. Something more stark and cold.

_But tha's more like a lab, really. Jemma works in a cold place, but she's far from it._

Instead, it was more like an old fashioned library. It wasn't exactly homey, but it was warm. There was even a ficus in the corner. There were walls of books in the small room framing the mahogany desk at the center where Mr. Simmons sat at his computer. He looked at ease for the first time since Fitz had met him, maybe because he was in his element as he typed away.

_Maybe he's sending out memos firin' people. Put him in a good mood._

"What did you need, Fitz?" The older man didn't look at him, just continued typing away.

"Well, Jemma and I're goin' ta tha gallery openin'-"

"You're not asking for permission to marry her are you?" Mr. Simmons looked up sharply from the computer, his elbows slamming down on the desk, and he winced.

"What?" Fitz tried to control the screech, but he failed. "No! No' tha' I wouldn't! I would. Jus' – we're jus' – it's a little soon for tha' – I think."

Mr. Simmons breathed in and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling as if giving thanks to every deity in the universe. "Good."

Fitz stopped babbling and furrowed his brow. He wanted to ask if it was him specifically that wasn't good enough for Jemma or if it was something else – people said fathers never thought anyone was good enough for their daughters – but he couldn't get the words out. He wanted to be offended that Mr. Simmons was so relieved that he wasn't about to propose, but he was also grateful that Mr. Simmons didn't look like he was about to have a heart attack anymore.

When Mr. Simmons finally looked at him again, the other man sighed. "It's not that you're not a nice man, Fitz. You and my daughter are very young. That's all."

He left it at that, so Fitz nodded his head and didn't press the issue, just said, "I jus' thought I'd ask – er – I don' think I have anythin' to wear to a gallery openin'?" Fitz ran one hand over the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I didn' mean ta – ah – worry you."

"Oh." Mr. Simmons looked embarrassed for a moment as well. "Ah. I see." He paused and inclined his head. "I'll call my assistant." When he picked up his phone from the surface of the desk, Fitz raised his eyebrows. "He has a good eye. Picks out all my suits for my business meetings."

"All right, then."

-o-

* * *

**I realized I didn't specify this before, but if anyone's wondering about why Jemma has a party planning cover, or where the ideas about her family came from, that is all courtesy of Marvel's current SHIELD comic book, issue #2.**


	3. Chapter 3

"**Within every elaborate lie, a kernel of truth."**

**-Marisha Pessl**

**-o-**

Fitz fidgeted with his sleeves in the corner of the room. He wore button downs and ties all the time, but for some reason, this suit was making him anxious.

_Yeah, Fitz. It's tha bloody suit. Keep tellin' yerself tha'."_

It had nothing to do with the way Jemma had sucked in a breath when he'd walked into the gallery, one of her hands fluttering nervously and playing with her necklace before she leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips while her mother stood by grinning at them. (The kissing. That was something he had not anticipated during this week. He was going to miss it.) And then, she'd told him he looked "dashing" in a voice so low that no one would have been able to hear it anyway except for the bloody SHIELD camera he was wearing. No, it had nothing to do with any of that.

Nothing at all.

He snagged his third glass of champagne from a passing member of the catering staff and downed half of it as his eyes followed Jemma across the room. She was wearing a simple little black dress, it wasn't even all that revealing, and he shouldn't have been so fixated on it, but he couldn't help it. He was having a very difficult time focusing on whatever the man Mrs. Simmons had introduced him to (before whisking Jemma away, of course) was actually saying.

"Mr. Fitz?"

That caught his attention. He itched to correct him that it was _Doctor. _"Just Fitz," he said instead.

"Right. What do you think?"

"Yeah, sure. Tha's fine." Fitz had no idea what it was he was agreeing with, but the little old man's eyes lit up.

"Wonderful. I'll draw up the paper work."

"Paper work?" Fitz echoed, but the man was already speeding away to a desk in the corner of the main gallery.

"I think you just bought a painting," Thomas toasted Fitz with his own glass of champagne.

"What? No. I didn' mean ta."

Thomas laughed after finishing his glass. "You should have paid more attention to the conversation than my sister then."

Fitz sighed. "How much did I spend?"

"75 quid. Bargain really," Thomas told him sarcastically.

Fitz swallowed the rest of his own glass and contemplated another, but knew three glasses was probably more than enough champagne for the night. He was starting to feel light headed and he didn't even like the stuff.

"Do you know which one I bought?" He asked him with another long sigh.

-o-

Fitz breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the bed in the guest room. Jemma was right. He wasn't exactly a mix and mingle kind of a guy. After having to tell the story of how he and Jemma wound up together for the sixth time to one of Mrs. Simmons's friends, he thought he could do it on autopilot.

Sure, he might have added in a few details here and there, like how he thought the universe had been playing some sort of trick on him when she told him she was waiting for him to ask her out. And yeah, he might have had to wing the story of their first "date," but given that no one had told him she'd given a different story, he thought he'd done pretty well.

Given that they were supposed to be dating, it wasn't _wrong_ of him to be disappointed every time she tried to join him and got interrupted by someone else at the gallery, right? He was supposed to be in love with her, so it was perfectly reasonable for him to stare at her when she laughed at someone's joke or for his eyes to wander down the column of her throat to the necklace she was wearing (a gift from him, he made it, he heard her tell someone proudly) when her fingers wound themselves in the chain there.

And at the end of the evening, when she walked up to him, took his fifth (or maybe it was his sixth?) glass of champagne from him and drank it down in two gulps and tucked herself into his side like it was something she did all the time, well, it was fine if he'd smiled like he had just won some sort of lottery, wasn't it?

All perfectly normal. All part of the cover.

He sat staring at the painting, a small rectangle, no bigger than one of the tablets he used in the lab, then squinted at it. He still wasn't even sure what it was he'd bought.

"Fitz?"

He twisted around to see Jemma standing in the doorway, one hand up as though she was about to knock.

"Hmm?"

She chanced a look over her shoulder and then walked in and shut the door behind her.

"Can you give me a hand?" She gestured to her necklace, her tone hushed. "I put the camera in the pendant you made," she told him as she moved closer, "but I can't get it back out?"

"O' course." Fitz stood quickly and moved to look at the pendant. He could have told her to take the necklace off. He could have told her she could just leave it in there until they left in another 48 hours. He could have done any number of things that didn't involve him standing in her personal space, but none of them actually entered his head as he lifted the pendant from her neck and his knuckles brushed her bare skin.

Jemma cleared her throat, and she looked a little flushed.

'_s from the champagne, Fitz, _he reminded himself as he examined her handiwork nestled inside of his design.

"I'm no' sure how ye managed ta get tha camera in here with all tha metal workin's."

"Well, my fingers are a bit smaller than yours." Jemma shrugged apologetically.

"Yeah… I might need pliers."

"Oh."

He slowly let the necklace fall back, and took a step back from her. "'s actually a smart place to hide i'. You wear the necklace fer tha next two days, and ye won' have ta worry about puttin' the camera in every day."

"Yes. I suppose that's true." Jemma smiled at him and wrapped her hand around the pendant, effectively cutting off the camera feed as she walked around him to look at the painting he'd purchased. "Thank you for buying a painting. You didn't have to do that, but it was the first purchase of the night. Made mum feel like she and the committee had picked a good artist to showcase. Though I think you might have overpaid a bit."

"Erm – yeah."

She cocked her head to the side and watched him, which only made him more self-conscious, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Fitz?"

He huffed and held his hands out in front of him in a pacifying gesture. "I might not 'ave been payin' attention. I didn' know I was buyin' a painting until i' was too late to say no."

She let out a small laugh, and he nodded his head, moving his hands to his hips. "Yeah, go on then." Fitz waited, but she only laughed harder, letting go of the necklace to cover her mouth with both hands. "'s not tha' funny."

"Oh, Fitz!" Jemma shook while she tried to stop herself from laughing. "You should have said!"

"And tell the poor man I wasn' even listenin' ta him! I felt bad." He pointed at the small canvas in its frame. "I don' even know what i' is."

Jemma sighed. "Oh, Fitz." She shook her head. "Well," she remarked, looking over at the painting again, "you are looking at it upside down."

"I am?"

She giggled, and Fitz was pretty sure that the embarrassment he had been feeling for the last couple of hours was worth it considering how utterly delighted she was at this turn of events.

"Here, look." Jemma walked over the bed and turned the painting in the opposite direction, propping it up against the pillows, and then gestured for him to back up a little bit. "What do you see?"

He watched her, her curls swaying over her shoulder as she backed up too, her head tilting to the side as she eyed the artwork with a smile, before she turned around to see why he wasn't responding.

Fitz crossed his arms and zeroed in on the lines of green and brown and yellow and black, the dots of white and orange that had all been a puzzle to him before. "Trees." He bit down on his bottom lip when she stepped lightly to his side. "An' I think there's a sun in tha back there?"

"Yes." Jemma smiled warmly when he looked to her for approval. "It's called 'Sunrise' and it's from the series of paintings based on the artist's visit to Peru. Charlotte thought it was the perfect choice for you. She said something about you wanting to go there?"

Fitz nodded, and gave an awkward chuckle. "Yeah. She mentioned something about a trip there." Simmons raised her eyebrows. "Not a trip fer me an' her!" He told her quickly, for some reason knowing that it was important that he clarify that. "I mean, she said she's been there. She thought I would like i' there. She said we should go." He floundered when Jemma's eyes opened wider. "You an' me, I mean!"

"You want to go on holiday to Peru together?"

"No. I mean, yes. I wasn' plannin' a holiday. I' was –" Fitz cut himself off and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He didn't know why this was so difficult to explain. "Charlotte mentioned tha' you didnae bring anyone home. She thought – she told me tha' she thought she'd be seein' more o' me. An' then she mentioned tha' she wouldn't if we took a tropical holiday instead."

"Oh." Jemma nodded in understanding. "I see." Fitz met her gaze, only for Jemma to look at the floor. "Peru would be lovely. That's actually a very good addition to the story." She swallowed hard and smiled brightly at him. It was the smile she used when she was hiding something, but Fitz wasn't sure exactly what it was. "Well, it's getting late, and I should probably let you get some sleep." She spun around and headed for the door.

She was definitely upset about something he'd said, but he didn't take the time to try to pick apart his awkward speech to figure out what.

"Jemma," he called, his hand wrapping loosely around her wrist before she got too far. "Have you really never brought anyone home?"

She shrugged, but didn't face him. "There's never been anyone I wanted to bring before."

"Thank you." It didn't seem like enough, but he wanted her to know that it meant a lot to him. Fitz wasn't used to being anyone's first choice. He moved his fingers down from her wrist to squeeze her hand. "Fer choosin' me."

She looked back at him over her shoulder and said simply, "thank you for coming with me." She returned the squeeze and leaned back pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. "Good night, Fitz."

That night he didn't sleep.

-o-

The last 48 hours at the Simmons house felt different. Fitz didn't know what it was that had shifted, but it was _something_.

He knew because rather than simply taking his hand when they went somewhere with a family member, Jemma was cuddling up to his side in the backseat of the car. And when her mother teased them about, well, anything, Jemma just rolled her eyes and Fitz found he didn't turn bright red like he did the first dozen times Mrs. Simmons had joked about Jemma keeping him up at night. Instead, he would have to stop himself from laughing, his lips twitching until the conversation moved on to something else. And when Mr. Simmons fixed him with a glare every now and again, it didn't have quite as much malice behind it as it had that first night.

In fact, after loading their luggage into the boot of the car that was going to take them to the airport, it was just Mr. Simmons and Fitz standing outside the house.

"Thank you for lettin' me stay," Fitz said, awkwardly shoving his hands in his pockets.

"I think we both know it wasn't up to me," Mr. Simmons said, even his smile managing to be intimidating.

"Still… i' was nice ta meet you." Fitz hesitated when Mr. Simmons didn't respond before plunging ahead, "Jemma – she talks abou' ye a lot ye know."

"Does she?" Mr. Simmons seemed to be genuinely surprised at that.

"Yeah. Says yer part o' wha' got her interested in science. Ye always thought she was special, tha' she could do anything."

"Yes. And she's decided to be a party planner." Mr. Simmons frowned, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

"Did you mean i' when you said she could do anything she wanted?" Fitz frowned as well. He was about to leave for the airport, so really, he figured he had nothing to lose at this point, so he clenched his fists in his pockets and waited.

_Unless this cover stays intact an' Jemma brings me back. _

Fitz swallowed. It was also entirely possible that Mr. Simmons could have him killed. He'd heard some shady things about Roxxon in the past.

"Of course I did," Mr. Simmons snapped, his complexion darkening, "but-"

"No," Fitz cut him off with a quick shake of his head. "You either meant it or you didn'. I'm sorry, Mr. Simmons, but you told her she could do anything, an' she found somethin' she loves. Tha's all tha' should matter."

The sound of shoes clattering down the walk behind him made Fitz stop talking. Mr. Simmons didn't say anything to him as Jemma came around them to say goodbye.

"Bye, Daddy." She was using the same sing-song voice she'd had when they first arrived, the placating tone she saved for her parents, so Fitz was fairly certain she'd heard a bit of their conversation. "I'll talk to you soon?" Her voice was laced with hope. Fitz held his breath.

"Of course." Her father nodded his head and wrapped his arms around her when she moved forward to hug him. "Take care of Fitz, here. He's not terrible."

Fitz exhaled with something of a laugh.

-o-

They spent most of the plane ride back to the States in companionable silence, a sketch book between them with Fitz penciling in new sections of designs and Jemma (_No_, he thought to himself, _Simmons, now_) making notations about materials and chemical components in the margin of the pages. When she fell asleep leaning on his shoulder, he dropped a kiss to the top of her head and decided that he would think of her as Jemma for just a little bit longer.

-o-

They had agreed (really, Jemma had insisted that they should both be there) to comb through the video footage from their camera feeds together, but it seemed like as soon as they set foot back on U.S. soil, the Academy commanded all of their attention.

"Maybe," Jemma (_Simmons_, he reminded himself) told him over the phone the morning before classes started back up again, "we should hold off on giving Dr. North the footage? We want him to have a full look at our progress, see how we really got into character. We can work on it after class tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Fitz agreed. Well, his voice did. His brain did not, and he opened up his computer and set about editing the footage on his own, even as Jemma (He internally sighed. He wasn't really going to be able to go back to calling her Simmons, was he?) prattled on in his ear about a fantastic xenobiology opportunity Agent Weaver had presented her with. He had the time. There was no reason he couldn't work ahead.

"-and I'm sure it's going to eat into our lab time a bit, but Fitz, it's such a fascinating study! I can't pass it up. Imagine the practical applications!" She paused. "Fitz? Are you even listening to me?"

"Mm hmm."

She laughed, and the sound was almost as good through the phone line as it was in person. "Yes. Of course you are. I'll let you get back to whatever it is you're doing. I'll see you later?" Jemma paused again, and even though he agreed, she added, "For dinner? At the cafe?"

His attention was split between his camera feed on the screen doing a double take, the button on his collar clearly trained on Jemma the entire night, as she laughed during the gallery opening. He sped through frame after frame, and his feed was all Jemma. Hours and hours of Jemma. He held back another sigh as he realized what it was going to show Dr. North.

"Yeah. Seven?"

"Seven. Perfect."

He disconnected the call and very carefully began cutting together their footage, omitting the long sequences where the audio showed him stumbling over his words while staring at his best friend and study partner.

He switched to Jemma's feed, feeling like he was trespassing for the first few minutes before he realized that so much of the footage was just going to mirror his own. His fingers hovered over the keys during one sequence where he and Jemma were sitting on the sofa and her mother teased them. He was smiling. And for nearly an hour, though she was speaking to her mother, she was turned toward him, as evident by the entire sequence keeping him in frame.

Fitz decided to leave it in. He couldn't take out all the teasing or Dr. North would probably find it suspect.

He did cut out whole sections that were repetitive and started running through the feed a bit faster, looking for unique frames, moments when he wasn't present. It made him uncomfortable, like he was reading Jemma's diary or something, if Jemma kept a diary, and there were moments where he wanted to look over his shoulder to make sure no one else was in his room. But he reasoned that she knew what she was getting into when they came up with this plan, and Dr. North was going to be looking at it anyway… It wasn't his fault that Jemma wasn't available for this editing session.

He forced himself to cut out a lengthy conversation Jemma had had with her sister comparing his "technique" to one of her previous boyfriends. He had a feeling that wasn't something their instructor needed to see, though it took him a very long time to find the end of it.

"I am not telling you that!"

"Jem! If you can't tell your sister, who can you tell?" Charlotte laughed on the screen and Fitz skipped ahead.

"He's fine, Charlotte. Really, he's… good."

"Aw, Jem. When you say good like that, it's never good." Charlotte's face twisted in sympathy and Fitz hesitated.

"No! It's not like that. Fitz is wonderful."

"Uh huh."

The sympathy had transformed into doubt. Fitz heard Jemma's annoyed huff through the feed and he could just imagine the expression on her face - somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed, but determined to get her point across.

"He _is_."

"Then give me all the details!"

Jemma hesitated, and the expression on her face must have changed because Charlotte's eyes widened. "Jem, can he not - you know?"

"What? No. Everything works perfectly! Thank you for your concern!"

Fitz placed his hands over his face even though no one could see him. He could feel every inch of his skin burning. He couldn't believe Jemma and Charlotte were talking about this - Jemma was being forced to defend his manhood to maintain her cover. It was ridiculous. A part of him wanted to know what she was going to say, but a larger part of him wanted to disappear and never have to deal with that.

"Are you blushing? Oh my god, you are!" Fitz peeked through his fingers to see Charlotte grinning widely and pointing at him, well Jemma really, in the camera frame. "Now, you have to tell me!"

Fitz couldn't take much more, so he clicked through a few minutes, hoping it would stop.

"Do you make him call you Doctor? Put those PhDs to good use?"

"Charlotte!"

"What? I know how bossy you are normally. I can only imagine how you are in bed!"

Fitz let out a very unmanly squeak and paused the recording, before moving it ahead. He just had to get beyond _this._

"He is _very _detail oriented," Jemma's voice said when he played it back. Her voice was very un-Jemma like, low and far away, almost like she was calling up a specific memory, but Fitz knew for a fact that had to be impossible. Her breath hitched before she started to say something else. Charlotte giggled, and Fitz hurriedly skipped a few more frames.

"Nope," he said to himself. "Nope, nope, nope."

When he pressed play on Jemma's feed again, she was commenting on how good he was with his hands. Fitz hit the button to pause everything on his laptop so hard he thought he was going to jam it.

"Jesus. I think she might be trying to kill me." He took a few deep breaths to compose himself. She knew he would see the video feed at some point. She was the one who had originally suggested they look at it together. She _knew_ this was on there.

She must have wanted to make sure it was erased so Dr. North would never see it. Yes, that had to be it. He skipped ahead.

_She was oddly specific though._

He played the next few seconds.

"Charlotte! Stop it." They were both laughing. "You're horrible!"

"I'm horrible? You're the one who said Fitz-"

He forced himself not to listen, skipping ahead through the video every few minutes until he found the end of it.

Charlotte rolled her eyes on the monitor. "Ugh. You two are sickeningly perfect. He's good for you."

"Yeah, he is."

If he wasn't listening to the rest of that, Dr. North wasn't going to listen to it either. He marked the starting and stopping point of the sisterly gossip session and deleted it from the feed.

It took him all day, but he managed to cut together a passable set of video to submit to Dr. North with just enough time to meet Jemma for dinner.

-o-

Their first class back with Dr. North, the older agent tried to catch Fitz's eye as the cadets were dismissed, but Fitz ignored him, rushing from the room and explaining to Jemma that he had to get to the aeronautics lab and he'd see her later for their usual study session. He didn't want to know how they did anymore. He was almost afraid to find out.

Not to mention he hadn't even told Jemma he'd edited the footage without her. He couldn't. He didn't want to see her reaction when she realized he'd combed through everything.

_He's very detail oriented, _he heard her voice in his head as he made his way across campus.

-o-

"Dr. North approached me after class. You turned in the footage without me… He bumped both our grades up, Fitz! Perfect marks. Would you believe he said that he knew we could do it all along? Just wanted to give us a push. He even called me Dr. Simmons." She waited, and Fitz knew she was probably looking for him to respond, so he stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention. Not that she hadn't actually had his full attention from the moment she'd entered the corner of his eye. "He mentioned that there was footage missing from what we turned in?" Jemma's tone of voice was perfectly innocent, but Fitz could see the anxious twisting of her hands in the hem of her jumper and the way her eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Oh?"

"Yes. Funny that. Based on some of the questions he asked me, there were quite a few pieces of the holiday missing." She cleared her throat. "He let me skim through it a bit. There were some - interesting - conversations omitted."

He just nodded.

"You know, I _had_ installed the software on my computer as well."

"You did?"

"Mm hmm." Jemma was clearly trying not to smile now. "I went back after speaking with Dr. North and looked at some of it myself."

Fitz felt himself starting to go into panic mode.

"Did you know, Fitz, that your camera spent an awful lot of time on me the last few days?"

"Equipmen' must 'ave malfunctioned," Fitz remarked nonchalantly. He shrugged his shoulders for good measure, pencil still poised over the paper in front of him where he had been in the middle of a sketch. His fingers twitched and his knee bounced under the table.

_Is she mad? She doesnae look mad. What does tha' look even mean?_

"I've never known your _equipment_ to malfunction," Jemma teased, sliding into the seat across from him with a smile, settling her hands on the surface of the table. "At least, that's what I told Charlotte in one of those sections that conveniently disappeared." Her cheeks pinked as soon as she spoke and Fitz opened his mouth and then snapped it back shut while he thought.

"Jemma Simmons," he finally said when her smile turned into something of a smirk, "are you flirtin' with me? When there aren't any cameras around?"

"I'm not very good at it, am I?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "Never seem to know when it's working or not."

"I – I think you're very good at i'."

"You do?" Her wrinkled nose relaxed and her smile broadened. "Does that mean you don't mind me flirting with you?"

"Mind?" Fitz knitted his brows together in confusion. "Jemma, if someone minded you flirtin' with them, I'm sure they'd be bloody mental."

"Ugh. Fitz!" She let out a frustrated groan. "I'm not asking if someone else would mind! I'm asking about you. Just you."

"Me?"

"Yes. You." Jemma bit down on another groan.

"Oh." Fitz grinned. "I see." It was like the proverbial sun had broken through the clouds for him. Her nervousness about bringing him home, the ease at which she'd fallen into the "dating" routine with him, suddenly everything about the last week made sense. "Well." He sat up straight and tried to figure out what he was supposed to do from there.

"Fitz." Jemma's eyes bored into his own and she grinned. "Stop being a prat and ask me out already."

-o-

* * *

**Thank you again to notapepper and StarryDreamer01 who are pretty much the best betas anyone could have. And to leopoldfitzsimmons for giving me such a good prompt. I hope you guys all enjoyed this!**


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